Our History from the Beginning
Geronimo Valley Drive, were developed as elements of that 1961 Master Plan. After the Summer of Love in 1967, the Valley became a magnet for “Flower Children” from San Francisco, who set up camps and other unconventional abodes in the hills of San Geronimo Valley, much to the horror of some old timers. In the early ’70s, a Countywide Plan based on the extraor- dinary document “Can the Last Place Last?” was proposed for adoption by the Marin County Board of Supervisors. Prior to its adoption, Lagunitas resident Jean Berensmeier learned of the 1961 Valley Master Plan. She organized a community meeting to review the plan and the ad hoc Planning Group was born. Gary Giacomini was elected to the Board of Super- visors in 1972 and was the third vote needed to adopt the far-reaching Countywide Plan in 1973. This rescinded the ’61 Master Plan. The Planning Group worked from 1972 to 1977 to create the first Community Plan that defined the four villages and preserved the Valley’s rural character, ridges and streams. Twenty-acre zoning was adopted for the area outside the villages that cut the potential development considerably and preserved open space and land for agricultural use. It was adopted in 1978. Soon afterward, a major subdivision was proposed by Hendricks & Horne that included 165 houses on 1,600 acres of land, along the entire south side of the Valley, behind the villages, up to the ridge. After five years of controversy and
center. During the last decade a children’s playground was built. In 1905 and 1906 the Mailliard heirs subdivided much of Lagunitas, and in 1912 they sold their remaining interest in San Geronimo Valley real estate to the Lagunitas Devel- opment Company, which subsequently subdivided Forest Knolls, San Geronimo, and Woodacre. Most of the homes built prior to World War II were used as summer cabins. In 1925 San Geronimo had 20 families that “swelled to 30” in the summer. After the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge, offering easier access to Marin County, and with the coming of World War II, when Sausalito shipyard workers needed housing, many summer cabins became permanent residences. Following World War II, little changed in the Valley, but in April 1961 the Marin County Board of Supervisors adopted a Master Plan proposal for the Valley that envisioned 20,000 new residents, and 5,000 new homes that would cover the entire Valley Planning Area which, at that time, included the area over the southern ridge encircling Kent Lake. The land around Spirit Rock was proposed to be the site for a Civic Center, fire station, shopping center, heliport, and multifam- ily residences. A freeway was proposed to come from San Anselmo over White’s Hill and through the center of the Val- ley, with an interchange that would cross on a diagonal across Roy’s Redwoods, over the northern ridge and into Nicasio Valley. During the next ten years only the golf course and a subdivision of 18 homes adjacent to the golf course, on San
From a brochure of the Lagunitas Development Company, 1914 (Image courtesy of Jim Staley collection)
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50 th Anniversary
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